The present invention relates generally to vehicle ditch moldings secured in ditches in outer vehicle panels, such as roof ditch moldings.
Moldings that are used in recesses between outer body panels on the vehicle are well known. Typically they are used for minimizing water or foreign object intrusion into the recess as well as to improve the aesthetic appearance where the body panels are joined. One example is a roof ditch molding that is used in a roof ditch formed by the connection of a roof panel and a side body panel. It is desirable for these types of moldings to be relatively inexpensive, easy to assemble to the vehicle, and yet difficult to pull off of the vehicle.
Some prior art moldings employ multiple pieces to assure that the retention capability is high. However, these moldings proved to be less cost-effective and more difficult to assemble than is desired. Some prior art single piece moldings, while relatively inexpensive and easy to assemble, proved to be too easy to pull off the vehicle, thus potentially detracting from the aesthetic appearance of the vehicle. Reshaping such single piece moldings has allowed for an increase in the retention force, but at the expense of now requiring tools, such as overhead rollers or robots, to assemble them to vehicles because the insertion force is high. This extra tooling increases the investment needed for vehicle assembly and also reduces the build flexibility—where on an assembly line the molding will be installed. Consequently, for conventional single piece roof ditch moldings there is a trade-off between the insertion force needed for assembly and the extraction force that will pull the molding loose from the vehicle.
Accordingly, a desire has arisen for an improved molding that will allow for an insertion force that is low enough to allow for hand assembly without tools, while still having a relatively high extraction force to assure that the molding stays on the vehicle once assembled to it. Moreover, it is desirable that such a molding maintains an acceptably high extraction force when tolerances between a roof body panel and a side body panel on a particular vehicle increase the width of the roof ditch, while also maintaining an acceptably low insertion force on vehicles where the tolerances for assembly of the body panels causes the roof ditch to be narrower than nominal.